Tianjun Rice Cabbage Rice, please, Mom, make me a pot

Photos/ Liu Chen-hsiang, Chen Chien-yu

The moment the newly harvested Nan'ao Tianjun Rice arrived, still carrying the scent of sunshine, I suddenly found myself craving my mother's cabbage rice. Clutching the rice, I headed straight to my parents' home, determined to pester my mother into making me a pot of cabbage rice no matter what. Tianjun Rice is known for its distinct, separate grains, so it should be perfectly suited for making cabbage rice.

This kind of longing for a familiar taste grows all the more intense the harder it is to obtain, almost like the cravings of morning sickness during pregnancy, where you simply cannot sleep until you have eaten it.

One bowl of rice noodle soup down, and a stomach that had been lovesick for half a month finally had its homesickness cured

In the past I often traveled abroad on business, and many flavors still linger in my memory. From time to time I recall who I was with, where, and what we ate. That taste, depending on whether the company clicked or not, would be sweet, sour or astringent, etched into the hippocampus of my brain.

I will always remember one time visiting my older sister's family in the US. When we went out to order food, looking at the MENU I always said, "Is there any soup?" When soup finally came, oh! Why was it thick soup again, and not clear soup? My Chinese stomach pushed me along, endlessly seeking bowls of soup simmered from all kinds of stock, and in vain.

That time, after a flight of more than ten hours, I returned to Taiwan in the middle of the night. The first thing I did was, at just past one in the morning, go with my mother to the mouth of the alley and order a bowl of sliced rice noodle soup. To this day I still firmly remember the moment I drank the soup: the pork bone broth full of fried shallots and chopped celery, and a stomach that had been lovesick for half a month finally had its homesickness cured.

After that, I was always running around from place to place, often inexplicably fixated on some kind of Taiwanese food. Actually, in Taiwan I have always very much enjoyed trying and savoring cuisines from all countries, and there is almost no cuisine or dish I do not like. By that logic, I should have a multinational stomach.

One time, I went to Malaysia to discuss cooperation with the local Nanyang Siang Pau group. Joanna, who wrote "Culture Is Good Business," treated us to a welcome meal at an authentic Indian restaurant. With every dish that came out, I ate with great relish and kept exclaiming in amazement. Seeing this, Joanna laughed and said, "You really do love to eat! You say everything is delicious." And it is true. I once chased after fine food, but today, seeing a mountain and it not being a mountain, what satisfies me most is the dumplings, cabbage rice, zongzi and the like that my mother makes, ordinary home-style flavors with a thousand variations.

The taste buds are a kind of memory device, always pulling up the people, events, times, places and things once shared

In the past, my maternal grandmother would always pickle perilla plums in spring when plums were abundant, make crunchy pickled cucumbers when Hsinchu cucumbers were in peak season, boil salted peanuts in autumn (different from the boiled peanuts sold outside now, but buying them to eat was better than nothing), stuff rice sausages (sliced and fried until fragrant, dipped in garlic soy sauce, also one of the absolute best), and fry vegetable tempura for Chinese New Year, and so on. Unfortunately, these skills all evaporated from the world with my grandmother's passing. I often think: "The taste buds are a kind of memory device, always connecting, among similar flavors, the people, events, times, places and things once shared."

My husband, who loves authentic flavors, really enjoys cabbage rice. Whenever my mother made cabbage rice and he was too busy to come, she would still pack a lunchbox for her son-in-law. This dish is not hard to make, but almost anyone who has eaten it will keep thinking about it. My little son really dislikes eating vegetables, but he will not refuse this cabbage rice, and Tianjun Rice cabbage rice is especially easy to chew, making it easy for my little son, who is right at the toothless gap stage, to eat. It could be said to be a home-style food suitable for both young and old.

Cabbage Rice Recipe

Ingredients:

1. Half to 1 head of organic or pesticide-free cabbage (cabbage shrinks easily, so you can use a bit more)
2. About 1 small dish of shredded pork (if you love meat, add a bit more, use your own judgment)
3. 3 or 4 shiitake mushrooms
4. 2 scallions

Method:

1. Wash 6 cups of Tianjun Rice, add 6 cups of water, put it in a rice cooker and cook, then take it out and set it aside to cool.
2. Soak the shiitake mushrooms in water and slice them; lightly marinate the shredded pork with soy sauce and sweet potato starch, drip in a few drops of sesame oil, and give it a brief mix with your hands.
3. Put a few spoonfuls of oil in a pan, fry the scallions and sliced shiitake mushrooms until fragrant, then scoop them out.
4. Wash and shred the cabbage (if you like more color, you can add some shredded carrot), put it into the aforementioned frying pan and stir-fry. When the juices come out, add the cooked white rice and stir-fry briefly (you can also fry up some crispy browned bits for extra fragrance)
5. At this point, add the already-fragrant shredded pork and shredded shiitake mushrooms, add 1 tablespoon of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of salt (do not add it all at once; you can taste for saltiness first), a little MSG, and chopped scallion, and mix gently (there is no need to repeatedly stir-fry it to the bottom like fried rice). Then drip in a few drops of small-mill sesame oil, scoop it out into the inner pot of the rice cooker, put 1 cup of water in the outer pot, and when the rice cooker pops, you will have fragrant cabbage rice.

Tips
You can also make it as country-style cabbage rice. Instead of cabbage, use only diced dried tofu (for the dried tofu, it is best to choose dried tofu made from organic soybeans, such as Dou Zhi Wei or Dou Zhi Fu; and if you can steam it in a bamboo steamer, it will certainly be even more fragrant.